


Coming Back

by Rhiannon87



Series: Some Sort of Crazy [ARCHIVED] [10]
Category: Uncharted
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 17,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breaking and rebuilding, leaving and coming back. Or: learning how to be a family in the year or so after Uncharted 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In retrospect, Sully probably should have scheduled their departure from Yemen a little differently. His initial plan had been to make the Aden-to-London trip in one push, with stops to refuel along the way, and get them to England by morning. But Nate's misadventures in the desert (not to mention everywhere else) had left him exhausted, his body seemingly rebelling against his claims that he was fine by making him doze off every few hours. And while Sully wasn't an expert on marriage by any stretch of the imagination, he had a feeling that Nate and Elena needed to have a talk or two that the noisy confines of his new plane wouldn't allow.

So instead of a mere refueling stop at a tiny Italian airstrip managed by the brother of a friend, Sully stopped there for the night. The friend, Matteo, owned a fantastic restaurant in the small town nearby, and it only took a couple exchanges over the radio to get the three of them set up with rooms at a local hotel and a promise of free breakfast the next morning.

When Sully saw the two of them come down to the lobby, he knew he'd made the right decision. Last night, Nate had been wavering on his feet with weariness, and Elena had been gripping his hand like she was afraid he'd vanish if she let go. This morning, though, they were all smiles, Nate's arm around Elena's shoulders as they walked over.

Breakfast was a leisurely affair out on the restaurant deck. Sully wasn't in a mood to rush. Sure, he wanted to get to London sometime today, but ‘sometime' was a pretty broad target. So instead they lingered over their food, chatting about the whole adventure of the past couple weeks, to Sully's surprise. He'd assumed that neither Nate nor Elena would want to discuss it. But while the exact subject of their separation seemed to be off the table, Elena wanted to know the details of how they'd gotten into this mess, and Nate didn't seem overly reluctant to tell her. Mostly, anyway; Sully just raised his eyebrows when Nate glossed over details like their razor-fine escape from the burning chateau.

Once most of their food had been eaten or given up on, Nate slumped over on the table, his head buried in his arms. "I'm never eating again," he declared. 

Sully snorted in disbelief. It had been a staggering amount of food, but Nate's appetite had diminished only slightly since he was a teenager. Elena appeared similarly skeptical. "You say that now, but in three hours you'll be asking if we can stop for lunch," she teased, ruffling his hair. Nate raised his hand without looking up and blindly swatted at her arm.

Sully laughed and pushed back from the table. Nate started to sit up, but Sully waved him off. "Gonna check in with Matteo before we leave," he said. "I'll come get you."

"'kay." Nate returned to his huddle over the table, and Sully didn't miss the way Elena's features tightened with worry. For all that Nate liked to act indestructible, he'd come horribly close to death several times in the last week, and he had the injuries to show for it. 

It took a bit of hunting to track down his friend-Matteo was in the kitchen, talking with one of the chefs about something or other, but he broke off the conversation when he spotted Sully. "Victor!" he said cheerfully. "Come, come, let us be out of the way." He ushered Sully out of the kitchen and back through the half-full restaurant. "How was everything? Good, yes?"

"Fantastic as always," Sully replied.

Matteo nodded and pushed open the door to the deck. "Had to get a proper meal in you before you leave." He made a dismissive, sniffing sound, and Sully resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Matteo was of the opinion that Italian cuisine was superior to all others, and the Italian cuisine served at his restaurant was, in turn, the best you could get. He did have a right to brag, though. The food was damn good.

The table was empty when Sully glanced around, and it took him a moment to spot Nate and Elena, standing by the railing and looking out over the rolling hills stretching out beyond the town. Nate had his arm around Elena again, and as Sully watched, Elena laughed and pushed herself up on her toes to give Nate a kiss.

Matteo chuckled. "Newlyweds?" he asked.

Sully sighed and managed a crooked smile. "Something like that."

The adorable-obnoxious couple behavior continued all the way out to the rental car. Sully rolled his eyes as he glanced in the rearview mirror to see the two of them lean in close, grinning about something. "Could you two be any more nauseating?"

And so it was that Sully learned not to issue a challenge to Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher. The ten-minute drive to the airfield consisted mostly of them trying to out-do each other with increasingly ridiculous pet names. The opening volley included the words ‘pumpkin' and ‘sugar,' and Elena eventually forfeited due to helpless laughter. They then solemnly, or as solemnly as they could while giggling, agreed to never use any of the aforementioned names ever again.

Sully just spent the drive grinning and laughing right along with them. This was a honeymoon period, he knew that, but it was still good to see them happy again.

"So," Elena said as they strolled towards the plane, "what's the plan once we get to London?"

"I dunno," Nate said. "Find a hotel, call Chloe and Charlie, let ‘em know we're--" He stopped talking abruptly, and Sully turned around to see that he'd come to a complete standstill on the tarmac. "Sully," he said, a slow smile spreading across his face.

"What?" Sully asked.

"Oh my _god_ , Sully." Sully shot Elena an exasperated look; she just shrugged and spread her hands helplessly. "The library," Nate continued, grinning eagerly.

After twenty years, he really should have been used to this behavior from Nate. "What library?"

"Marlowe's library," Nate said.

And then it clicked. "I'll be go to hell," Sully muttered with a matching grin.

Elena glanced back and forth between the two of them. "What about the library?" she asked.

Nate turned to her, waving one hand in the air in excitement. "This place was just packed with, with books and relics and art and who knows what else, and if Marlowe moved her whole operation to Yemen--"

"Then it's probably all there," Elena finished. She shook her head, smiling faintly. "You don't think she'd have left some guards, though?"

"Only one way to find out," Nate said. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "I'm gonna call Chloe, see if she can check the place out."

As he put the phone to his ear, Sully grabbed his bag from his other hand. Nate gave him a quick smile of gratitude, then turned his attention back to the call. Sully half-listened to Nate's side of the conversation as he loaded up the bags. 

"Hey, Chloe! It's me. Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, we're fine. Should be in London later today. I-no, no, I'll tell you everything once I get there. Chloe, look, I just realized something. Marlowe's library. It's gotta be-oh. You already-oh, great. So did you-okay." Nate nodded and headed for the plane. "Great. Hey, how's Charlie doing? Is he-good. Tell him I said hi."

"Tell him I said hi, too," Elena chimed in.

"Elena says hi, too," Nate said dutifully. He went quiet for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, she's with us. Yeah! We'll see you soon. I'll call once we're on the ground. Bye." He hung up and scrambled into the plane. "Chloe and Charlie had the same thought we did, only about a week ago," he reported as he pulled the door shut. "Chloe didn't want to go down there by herself, but she's been keeping an eye on the place. She said it looks quiet." He shoved his phone back in his pocket and sat down on the bench next to Elena. "She also said hi and that Charlie's doing okay."

Sully settled into the pilot's seat and started going through the pre-flight procedures. They'd probably need to make at least one more stop to refuel before reaching London. "Well, guess we've got plans, now," he said. He'd need to call his buddy with the cargo plane in Montreal. Between the contraband and moving his own plane across the Atlantic, they were gonna need a lot of space.


	2. Chapter 2

The beams of the flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating long-abandoned train cars and crumbling stone walls. "Watch the drop," Nate said, aiming his light at the tracks.

"Mm, shouldn't that be 'mind the gap?'" Chloe asked, gingerly testing the boards of the makeshift bridge before stepping across.

Nate chuckled and shook his head. "It should be just through there." He gestured ahead of them at the abandoned station, the light glinting off the brass statue.

"Here's hoping the power's still on," Sully muttered as he followed Chloe across the tracks.

Nate glanced over at Elena, who was still standing next to him, her head tilted back as she looked up at the rusted chandeliers. "This place is amazing," she said. "I can't believe it's just been abandoned like this."

He grinned and squeezed her hand. "Wait 'til you see the library," he said.

Elena gave him a quick smile before pulling her hand free and making her way across the boards. Nate followed, and as soon as they were side by side again, he grabbed her hand and laced their fingers together. It had been all of three days since they'd left Yemen, and the fact that she was here-- that she wanted to be here, that she'd given him another chance-- still didn't quite feel real. They'd talked a lot since leaving Aden, and while things were far from okay between them, at least they were trying. He'd be damned if he let himself screw this up again.

"Anyone else find this really creepy?" Chloe asked, arms folded over her chest as she stared at the brass sculpture in the middle of the station. Behind her, Sully was making his way to the hole blasted in the wall on the far side of the room.

Elena tilted her head to the side. "It's cool until you see the statues," she agreed. "Then--"

"Very creepy." Chloe sighed. "Please don't tell me we're gonna try to move _this_ out of here."

Nate shook his head. "Left my cutting torch at home."

"Lights are still on," Sully announced when they caught up with him at the end of the tunnel. "I wonder if they're tapped into the Tube power lines."

Nate shrugged. The how of it didn't really matter; all he cared about was that they wouldn't be raiding this place in the dark. He tugged at Elena's hand, leading her to the heavy doors that opened into the library.

"...whoa," Elena breathed, her eyes wide as she looked around. "You weren't kidding."

"Nope," Nate said, beaming. "I can't believe it's all still here!"

"This is incredible," Chloe said as she came up behind them.

"And best of all, it's all ours." Sully chuckled and shook his head. "Goddamn, kid. This could set us up for life, we play it right."

Nate scoffed. "After pulling out what we wanna keep and splitting the remainder four ways? I don't know about that, Sully."

"Hmph. Set _me_ up, anyway."

Nate chose to ignore that comment and the meaning behind it and instead let Elena pull him over to one of the display cases. "Where did they get all this stuff?" she asked.

"I don't know and I don't care," Nate said. "Because these swords are _awesome_." Pre-Islamic Persian, he was pretty sure, and he carefully opened the case to take one out.

Elena turned away, looking around the room, and shook her head. "Where do we even start?"

Nate glanced over his shoulder to see Chloe browsing the books and Sully staring contemplatively at the giant stuffed crocodile. He rolled his eyes-- of _course_ Sully would want that ugly thing. "No idea," he replied and gently set the sword back in its stand. He could think of at least three collectors who'd pay good money for the whole set of blades.

"Probably ought to figure out what we want to keep," Chloe suggested. "Then we'll pack up what we're selling." She ran a finger along the spines of the books at her left hand. "Charlie asked for any books on English history."

Nate snorted. "Yeah, I think you're gonna have to narrow that down, 'cause that's probably all of them."

"And let me guess, you want the ones on Drake, right?" Chloe asked.

Elena turned to look at him, waiting for his response with a level stare and raised eyebrows. Nate swallowed hard and shook his head. "Nah," he said, forcing a smile onto his face. If it sounded like a joke, then no one would notice that he was kicking out the foundations of the identity he'd spent twenty years building. "I think I've had my fill of chasing after him."

Chloe nodded, Elena relaxed, and the world didn't end. Nate halfway reached for the ring he didn't wear anymore, then caught himself and dropped his hand. That was over. He couldn't keep pretending to be Drake's heir, not anymore. He'd just have to figure out something else.


	3. Chapter 3

"Look, Elena, you're a great reporter," Roger said. "But you've gotta understand how this sounds. Especially in light of your... record."

Elena sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. "I know. And if you can't do it, I understand. But I figured if I asked, the worst you could do is say no." Or, you know, fire her for being completely unreasonable, which would solve one problem but create a whole host of new ones.

There was silence on the other end of the line, and she could just picture her manager frowning thoughtfully at the wall. Elena stared at the wall too, though Sully's living room had far more interesting things in it than Roger's office. She actually managed to get distracted with trying to remember where in Africa those masks would be from that she almost didn't hear when Roger spoke up again. "Two months," he said. "That's the best I can do."

"That's fine," Elena said quickly. "That's great, no, thank you, really."

He sighed. "You've resolved those 'family issues' that led to this sudden leave of absence?"

"Yeah. Yeah, my father-in-law is doing much better now." A medical emergency was far easier to explain, and far less likely to lead to arrests, than the truth of what had happened in Yemen.

Roger was quiet for a second. "And I assume this sudden request to move back the States means your marriage--"

"Is none of your business," Elena said icily. She hadn't really talked about it much with her colleagues-- most of them had assumed she'd been happily married the whole time, since she'd never stopped wearing her ring. And it wasn't like many of them had been stationed in Aden with her. But when she'd first moved out to Yemen, Roger had asked if he was getting visas for them both, and she'd had to tell him. 

"Right." Roger sighed again. "You'll be expected back on duty in seven days. Let me know when you've arranged a flight."

"Yeah. Thanks again." Elena hung up the phone and exhaled slowly. That could have gone a lot, lot worse. But she'd be on pretty thin ice with the network for the foreseeable future, she was certain of it. She already had a certain reputation: dedicated and talented, but reckless, at times dangerously so. And now she was pretty sure that 'unreliable' was going to get added in there, especially after this abrupt leave of absence from her post. Her contract in Yemen had been for a year. She'd been there for a little over five months before Nate and Sully had come sweeping back into her life.

Not that she wasn't glad for it, now that everything was worked out, but... well, sometimes they forgot that other people had steady jobs and managers and responsibilities.

She shook her head and tucked her phone in her pocket, then went to find Nate. They'd been back in the U.S. for two days; it had taken a couple days to get from Aden to London in Sully's new plane, and then they'd spent almost a week clearing out Marlowe's library. She wasn't an expert in the subject by any means, but even after subtracting the relics and books they'd wanted to keep, the sheer volume meant they'd be getting handsome payouts for years to come. 

It wasn't until they'd landed in Miami that Nate and Elena had remembered that neither of them had anywhere to live. Given the circumstances, they really couldn't turn down Sully's offer of the spare bedroom. Elena didn't like it much-it felt like her life was in a holding pattern, waiting for things to line up right so she could move on. Getting her job sorted out was a start, but it wasn't what she wanted, not really. 

She found Nate stretched out with his laptop on the bed in his old room. She'd seen his room before, of course, over the years when they'd come to Sully's house, but it was different when she was staying in there. For all that Nate had tried to remain rootless, he still left pieces of himself behind when he'd moved out. Stray knick-knacks in the nightstand, a filthy red and white t-shirt crumpled in the back of the closet, an old notebook in the desk… He'd let her page through it last night, sitting beside her on the bed to explain when and where various doodles were from. She'd stopped on a couple pages near the middle, covered in his name, _Nathan Drake_ signed over and over again.

"Had to practice," Nate had admitted when she'd looked at him askance.

Now, though, Nate was the one who looked curious as Elena shut the door behind her. "How'd it go?" he asked and closed the laptop.

"I still have a job," Elena said. She dropped down on the edge of the mattress and looked over at him. "I have to be back there in a week. And they want me to stay for another two months."

Nate's face fell. "Oh," he said, gaze dropping to the bed.

Elena moved up the bed to sit beside him, then moved his laptop to the nightstand. "It's not that long," she said. "Better than having to finish out the full seven months."

"Yeah, I know, I just…" He traced a finger along the seam on the comforter and shrugged. He glanced at her sideways, and Elena guessed from the guilty look on his face where he was going before he even opened his mouth. "I just got you back," he finally said quietly. "I don't want to lose you again."

"You're not losing me." God, this felt too familiar. Elena swallowed hard against the memory of that moment at the airfield, the desperation in his voice and the raw fear in his eyes as he'd begged her not to follow him. "I'll go back, do my eight weeks, and then-and then I'll come home." That they didn't have a specific place to call home didn't really matter. Somewhere along the line Nate had become home for her, even with everything that had happened.

Nate sighed. "You're sure I can't come with you?"

"I'm sure it's not a good idea for you to be back in Yemen for that long," Elena replied with a wry smile. Nate huffed out a weak laugh at that. Two months was a weird length of time to be in the country-too long to be a vacation, too short for most business-related ventures. It would attract attention, and that was the last thing he needed.

Nate picked at a loose thread on the blanket, and Elena reached out to take his hand, lacing their fingers together. "You can come visit," she said. "A fake ID and a tourist visa will probably be safe enough."

"Probably." Nate turned their hands to the side so he could see the wedding ring on his finger. It was new enough that Elena still felt a momentary flutter of relief at the sight. Nate wearing his ring again didn't mean everything was fixed, far from it, but… it meant something. It meant they had a chance. He shook his head and looked over at her. "I just-doesn't really seem like the best way to be… for us to…" Nate trailed off and waved his free hand helplessly at them both.

"I know." Elena leaned her head against his shoulder. "Believe me, I know." She'd told him, on the first night after they left Yemen, that she needed time to trust him again. To really forgive him for what he'd done to her, what he'd put her through. What he'd done to himself. Two months of further separation seemed like going backwards.

She felt Nate's shoulders slump, and he buried his face in her hair. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"I know." She was starting to feel like a broken record, but that was the thing: when it came to Nate, she pretty much always knew. She knew him better than anyone else alive, except maybe Sully. For all his evasiveness and lies and shields, he'd still let her in, still opened up as much as he could. And now with the truth about his name and his childhood and all the rest out in the open, it felt like some final barrier had come down between them.

Elena rolled onto her side and wrapped her arm around his waist, her head on his chest. Nate pulled his hand free and wrapped his arms around her. He'd always craved physical contact, and after so many months apart, it seemed almost like he was trying to make up for lost time. It might start to feel smothering, if he kept it up for too long, but right now… well, Elena had missed him, too.

"When will you have to leave?" Nate asked after a few minutes of quiet cuddling.

Elena frowned, thinking. "Saturday, probably," she said. "I want to have a couple days to get back on Aden's time zone before I have to go back to work."

Nate tightened his arms around her. "That's really soon," he said.

"Yeah," she said and raised her head to look at him. "But we don't have anything to do before I leave." She brushed her knuckles against his cheek and smiled when Nate leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment. "We can just stay in here the whole time. Sneak out for food."

Nate chuckled. "Sully'll get jealous," he said.

"Sully's gonna have you all to himself for the next two months," Elena said and refrained from pointing out that he'd had Nate for the last seven months, too. It left a bitter taste in her mouth to think of it like that. By the time she got back from Yemen, they'd have been apart almost nine months total. 

From the way his gaze flicked away, Elena had a feeling that Nate's thoughts were running on a similar path. "I was talking about you," he said. "Me, he'll probably kick out the day after you leave, he's gotta be sick of me by now." 

His attempt at joking didn't quite work, the light tone failing to cover up the tension around his eyes or the way his fingers pressed into her skin for a moment. "I doubt that," Elena said, catching his gaze.

Nate blinked at her, then looked away and tugged her back down against his chest. "So did you mean it about staying in here until you have to leave?" he asked after a little while.

"Sadly, no," she said. "At some point I'll have to buy my plane ticket--"

"Laptop's right there," Nate pointed out.

She laughed. "Okay. But I also need to do laundry. And pack. Oh, and I wanna go to that one Cuban place before I leave the States again..."

Nate heaved a sigh. "Oh, fine," he said, acting put-upon.

Elena chuckled again and tucked her head under his chin. "But right now, I don't have anywhere to else to be."


	4. Chapter 4

Sully couldn't exactly blame Nate for moping around the house, the first week after Elena went back to Yemen. He'd missed her before, Sully knew that, but he'd had Drake and Marlowe to distract himself. To convince himself that leaving her had been the right thing, and Sully _still_ regretted that he hadn't done more to get the kid's head out of his ass. Sure, everything worked out all right in the end, but maybe it could have been worked out a lot sooner.

Or maybe Nate would have kept being a stubborn idiot and gone off and gotten himself killed.

Still, it was all in the past now. Sully had to deal with what was in front of him, which at the moment was a forlorn, half-healed treasure hunter sitting across the table and staring at his phone as though he could somehow get Elena to call him through sheer willpower. A week of moping he'd allow. This was day ten. The situation could not continue.

"You started looking for an apartment, kid?" Sully asked, leaning back in his chair with a mug of coffee.  

Nate looked up from his phone and blinked at Sully, then managed a brittle smile. "Sick of me already?" he asked, picking up his own mug.

Sully sighed. Yeah. Definitely needed to get the kid out of this funk. "No, but you damn well better have a place by the time Elena gets back." He paused for a beat, waiting for Nate to take a drink before he continued. "I mean, I'm glad you've got such a satisfying sex life, but I don't need to hear it every night."

As expected, Nate almost spat out his coffee. "I, uh, sorry," he muttered, coughing a bit.

Sully smirked and waved off the apology. "My point is, you really oughta start looking."

"Yeah. I will." Nate nodded and went back to staring at his phone. He picked it up and switched on the screen, then sighed.

Sully pinched the bridge of his nose. Okay, so merely pointing Nate at a potential distraction wasn't working. Direct action was required. "You feel up to a trip out to the airfield?" he asked abruptly, pushing back from the table.

"Uh. Yeah, I guess so," Nate said. "Why, we going somewhere?"

"Yeah. The airfield." Sully stood up and drained the rest of his coffee. "That junker of a plane I bought needs some serious work, and I need someone to hold the screwdrivers for me."

Nate huffed out a laugh. "More like you need someone to undo all your insane rewiring."

"Hey, the last plane ran like a dream once I was done with it."

"Yeah, so long as you remembered that half the displays were reversed." Nate shook his head and grinned. "I can't believe we actually survived that test flight."

Sully scoffed and headed to the kitchen. "That's what the parachutes were for."

"I don't think we _had_ parachutes!"

The plane wasn't in terrible shape, as it had safely gotten them across the Middle East and Europe, but it definitely needed work. And a new coat of paint, although that would have to wait for another day. By mid-afternoon, Sully knew he'd made the right decision in dragging Nate out with him. He seemed more like his old self, the way he'd been before the thing with Marlowe-- the _obsession_ , call it what it was-- had taken over his life. The thirty-minute phone call with Elena probably helped, too, but Sully elected to give himself most of the credit.

They spent most of the time talking: about the plane, about where Nate should look for an apartment, about who to fence their recently acquired hoard of artifacts through. Nothing hugely important, which was fine with Sully. Nate'd had plenty of heavy conversations lately. He could go a day or two without one.

Nate, apparently, had a different idea. Sully was tossing everything back into the toolbox when Nate suddenly appeared by his side, hovering anxiously with his hands jammed in his pockets. Sully glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Somethin' wrong?"

"I, uh, I just..." Nate frowned. "I never said sorry, for, y'know, dragging you into that whole mess." He shrugged and looked away. "So. Sorry."

Sully shut the toolbox and got to his feet with a faint groan. What was it with airports inspiring all the touchy-feely stuff for the two of them, anyway. "You didn't drag me, kid," Sully said. "I had plenty of chances to walk away. Stuck around 'cause I wanted to."

Nate fidgeted in place, looking for all the world like the scrawny, gun-shy kid Sully had taken in twenty years ago. Sully sighed and picked up the tool box. "Here," he said, swinging the heavy box in Nate's direction, "you're young, you carry it."

Nate jerked his hands out of his pockets and caught the box just in time to keep it from colliding with his midsection. "Yeah, wouldn't want you to strain somethin', grandpa," he joked as they started walking towards the truck.

The companionable silence that followed lasted until Nate loaded the tool box into the bed of the pickup truck with a jarring clang. He brushed his hands off on his jeans and glanced over at Sully. "You, uh, you know Drake's not my real name, right?" he blurted out.

Sully just blinked at him. "Eh, it's real enough," he said after a few moments. "Didn't put together all those papers with your name on 'em for nothing." Nate's brow furrowed, like he hadn't thought of that before, and Sully sighed. Kid had a good heart, but damn if he couldn't be an idiot about things sometimes. "C'mon," he said, clapping Nate on the shoulder. "Let's go. That seafood bar opens at six, and I don't want to miss a minute."

Nate groaned and walked around to the passenger seat. "Are you really expecting me to play wingman for you?" he asked as he climbed in.

"Yup," Sully said.

"I'm _married_."

Sully grinned and started the truck. "Yeah, I guess the ring is a bit of a giveaway, isn't it." In the past, he'd have joked that Nate could have just taken it off, but given the circumstances that seemed like a bad idea. "All right, fine, you're relieved of your wingman duties. But I'm not buying you dinner."


	5. Chapter 5

Nathan Drake: saw your story i think. only about 20 sec clip should talk to someone about that

_Message received: 2:13 a.m._

Elena Fisher: Yeah, peaceful protests aren't interesting enough for a focus segment, apparently.

_Message sent: 8:02 a.m._

Elena Fisher: And you won't see these for another eight hours because neither of us can figure out time zones.

_Message sent: 8:04 a.m._

Nathan Drake: nine. oops.

_Message received:_ _5:14 p.m._

Elena Fisher: It's all right. You need the sleep.

_Message sent: 5:15 p.m._

Nathan Drake: i'm fine you and sully keep fretting

_Message received: 5:15 p.m._

Elena Fisher: That's what you get for wandering off into a desert by yourself.

_Message sent: 5:16 p.m._

Nathan Drake: i know i know

_Message received: 5:17 p.m._

Nathan Drake: call you after shower?

_Message received: 5:17 p.m._

Elena Fisher: I'm eating dinner now, so that's perfect.

_Message sent: 5:18 p.m._

She'd just put the leftovers from dinner in the fridge when her phone rang. Elena pulled it out of her pocket and checked the caller ID before answering. A couple weeks ago, she'd made the mistake of assuming it was Nate and had accidentally greeted her producer with "hey, handsome." Little awkward.

This call _was_ from Nate, though. "Hey, you," she said.

"Hey," Nate said around a yawn. "Sorry. Not awake yet."

"I can tell." Elena put her plate on the slowly growing pile in the sink and resolved to clean them tomorrow, just as she had every night for the last week. "Is Sully around?"

"Uh... as far as I can tell, he has not come back from his trip out to the bar last night," Nate said.

Elena laughed and flopped down on her couch. "Good for him. Tell him hi for me, when he gets back?"

"Uh-huh," Nate said absently.

"Any luck apartment hunting?" she asked, tilting her head back to stare up at the ceiling.

Nate made a non-committal sound. "Found a few places. Just gotta, you know, pick one."

"Yeah," Elena said. "It doesn't have to be great, just somewhere to put our stuff while we figure out where we actually want to live."

"I know." Nate sighed. "I hate moving."

"Same here." Elena swung her legs up on the coffee table. "At least our stuff will all be in boxes already." She hadn't taken much with her when she'd moved to Yemen, so almost everything from their old apartment in L.A. was in storage.

Nate chuckled. "True." He yawned again, though the sound was a bit muffled this time. "Oh, hey, when would be a good time to come see you?"

She grinned at the ceiling. "Whenever you can," she said. "There's not gonna be a 'good time,' really-- we keep hearing rumors about a power transfer, but nothing's solid yet. I'm gonna be sort of busy no matter when you show up."

"Oh. Well, in that case, guess I'll start looking for tickets today."

"Okay. Good."

Nate sighed quietly, and Elena heard a faint rustling sound in the background. "So how's your day been?" he asked. "Any more protests, peaceful or otherwise?"

"No, just had a few interviews with some local opposition leaders..."


	6. Chapter 6

There were times when Elena's life felt kind of like a movie. Her job and her husband meant that the movie was usually an action-adventure, complete with explosions and supposedly witty one-liners. Romance wasn't typically the genre she'd put herself in.

But when she spotted Nate waiting for her just outside the terminal, well, she was pretty sure she could hear the violins starting up in the background.

It had only been three weeks since she last saw him, but given the state of their relationship--sort of new, sort of old, definitely raw--those weeks felt like a small eternity. Nate caught sight of her and lit up like a Christmas tree. Elena smiled back as she edged her way through the crowd. If there weren't so many people, she'd probably just give into the cliché and break into a run. Nate took a few steps forward to meet her, and before she could say anything he threw his arms around her and literally took her off her feet in an almost-crushing embrace. She laughed and hugged him back, her arms around his neck and her bag somewhere on the ground nearby. She hoped.

He set her down, and she had time for maybe one breath before he was kissing her, his hands splayed on her back and his tongue teasing at her lips. Elena returned the kiss eagerly, her body pressed against his and god, she'd missed him. Missed this. Nate was slow and thorough about it, as though breathing was a suggestion rather than a requirement, and Elena was almost dizzy when they finally parted.

Off to her left, someone whistled at them. Nate just laughed and leaned his forehead against hers. "Hi," he said, still out of breath.

"Hi." Elena slid one hand over his shoulder and pressed it to his chest, over his heart. "Miss me?"

"Oh, you know, a little." He kissed her again, quick this time, then took a step back and grabbed her hand. "C'mon. Let's go home."

Elena laced her fingers through his and picked up her bag. "Yeah."

An hour later, Elena threw herself down on the couch beside Nate and made grabbing motions at the pizza box sitting on the coffee table. "Feel better?" Nate asked as he slid the box towards her.

"Much," she said. Showering off nineteen hours' worth of travel and changing into clean clothes made a world of difference. Elena bit into her slice of delicious, greasy pepperoni pizza and sighed in contentment. Beside her, Nate popped open a couple bottles of beer and slid one of those over to her, too. Several minutes passed in comfortable silence while they ate; Elena looked around the strangely empty living room, while Nate casually inched closer to her until he was leaning against her side. She just chuckled and rested her head on his shoulder. "So where is everything?" she asked, gesturing at the room.

Nate nodded at the hall. "Second bedroom, mostly," he said. "I didn't unpack much, since I didn't know how long we'd be here."

"Yeah." The apartment wasn't awful, but it was definitely a step down from their place in L.A. Or her place in Aden, for that matter. They could easily afford better. "So... where do we want to live?"

Nate drained his beer and leaned forward to set the empty bottle on the table. "I'm really not picky," he said. "My only requests are in the U.S., near an international airport, and warm most of the year."

Elena pointed at the window. "Miami?" Staying in the same city would make the process of moving a little less painful.

"You sure you don't wanna move back to L.A.?" he asked.

Elena shrugged. "Investigative journalist means I can live pretty much anywhere," she said. It would be nice, getting back to that job. Covering the uprisings and protests in Yemen had been great, but it was hard to maintain her enthusiasm when she knew that days of reports and coverage would get condensed into a thirty-second spot halfway through the six o'clock news. Doing investigative reporting gave her a much better chance of her stories getting the focus they deserved.

Nate nodded. Elena glanced at him before continuing. "Besides, Sully's here," she said. "We might as well stay close by." Given everything, she certainly wouldn't mind keeping their little family together.

"Yeah," Nate agreed with a faint laugh.

Well, that had been easy. "Now we get to start apartment hunting again," Elena said dryly. If they started looking after the start of the new year, they could probably get into a place by February or March.

Nate glanced at her sideways. "Yeah, or... we could look at buying a house. Or a condo, or something."

Elena blinked at him in surprise. She'd brought up the idea of buying a place together, back before... everything, but Nate had brushed it off. Why bother when we're traveling so much anyway, he'd said, maybe in a few years. Elena hadn't felt strongly enough about it to argue the point, and by the time she might have cared, his obsession with Marlowe had pushed out everything else. She liked the idea, she really did-- having a place that was theirs, that was home, seemed a lot more important now. But for all that she wanted to take his offer at face value, she couldn't help but be skeptical.

"What?" Nate asked, because apparently she was taking too long to answer.

Elena looked away. She had to ask, but this was not going to be pleasant. "Do you-- do you actually want to buy a place together, or are you just trying to prove a point?"

"Prove _what_ point?" Nate asked. He straightened up, pulling away from her a little, and Elena winced.

"I just..." She trailed off, rolling the words around in her head, trying to come up with a way to say this that wouldn't cause a fight. She came up empty, though, and forced them out regardless of the knot in her stomach. "It's gonna take more than that for me to trust you again." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him flinch. "And if-- if you're suggesting it because you think it'll fix everything, then maybe... maybe we should wait."

Nate leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Wait until when?" he asked, voice flat.

"I don't know." Elena scrubbed a hand over her face. It wasn't going to be like flipping a switch, trusting him not to leave again. Especially when she'd never really trusted him to stay in the first place. She'd always known Nate had issues with commitment, and when he'd walked out, it had confirmed her worst fears.

Nate exhaled sharply. Elena winced again. This was not how she'd wanted to spend their first night back together. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, then," Nate said. "I'm not going anywhere."

_This time_. The words hung unspoken in the air. Elena closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out. Then she opened them and scooted closer to Nate. He didn't move from his hunched-over position, but Elena wrapped her arms around his anyway. "It's gonna take time, Nate," she said quietly. "There's not any one thing you can do, just... just don't leave."

"So, what, are we supposed to just put our lives on hold until you trust me?" Nate asked bitterly.

Dammit. Elena pulled away and turned to look at him. "You can't blame me for this, Nate," she said, a note of anger threading into her voice. He left her, she had every right not to trust him. To need time.

"I'm not..." He sighed. "I'm not saying that, I just, I don't want to... Shit, I don't know." Nate braced his forehead against his palm. "Do you not _want_ to buy a place, or...?"

"No, I do," Elena said. "But I'm not--" She cut herself off with a sharp breath. "Just give me a little time to think about it?" she asked. "It's not like we can start looking for anything until after the holidays."

"Okay," Nate said, sounding resigned, his gaze fixed on the floor.

Elena placed her hand on the back of his neck, gently rubbing her thumb back and forth. "We'll be okay, Nate," she said.

He shook his head. "Meaning that we're not now," he said roughly.

She cringed. "We're doing better," she said. But ultimately, Nate was right. They weren't okay, not really, not yet. Not when she still didn't trust him and he was still beating himself up for everything he'd done. But they'd get there. She had to believe they would, otherwise what was the point?

Nate took a deep breath and sat up, finally looking at her again. "This is not how I'd planned for this night to go," he said.

Neither had she, but it certainly wasn't too late to get things back on track. "Well," Elena said, letting her hand trail down his spine, "you could tell me what you _did_ have planned."

He glanced at her sideways, raising an eyebrow at her tone. She gave him a crooked smile and waited. "I could," he agreed slowly. "Or I could show you."

"Mm, a demonstration sounds much more fun," Elena said. Nate chuckled and stood up, taking her hands and drawing her to her feet. He started to pull away, but she twined her fingers through his, holding him in place for the moment. "Hey," she said softly and tilted her head to the side to meet his eyes. "I love you." It seemed like it needed saying, after all that.

Nate blinked at her, and he only hesitated a second or two before replying. "Love you, too." For a moment, it looked like he was going to say something else, but then he pulled his hands free and bent down to scoop her up in his arms. Elena yelped at the sudden change in position, grabbing his shoulders for balance. Nate just grinned. "This is part one of the plan," he said and turned towards the bedroom.

"How many parts are there?"

"When do you have to go back to work?"


	7. Chapter 7

The lunch invitation from Sully was a bit of a surprise, even more so when he specified that it was just for her. Over four years since they first met, and she could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen him without Nate present. Sully was vague when she asked what the occasion was-- "Just want to catch up," he'd said, and Elena knew better than to press the issue. She'd find out what he wanted soon enough.

They met at an open-air cafe-- "surprisingly classy," Elena teased, and Sully pretended to be wounded by her comment. They settled in at a table overlooking the beach and kept the conversation to food until after they'd ordered. "So," Elena began, leaning back in her chair, "what prompted this?"

Sully pulled out a cigar and shrugged. "Like I said, just wanted to catch up," he said as he lit it. Elena raised her eyebrows skeptically. "What? Do I have to have an ulterior motive? I haven't seen you much since you got back."

He had a point there. The three of them had had dinner a few times, and they'd spent Christmas together, but otherwise, Nate had been the one spending time with Sully. Which wasn't exactly unusual. What was unusual was Sully excluding Nate from this lunch invite. Something was up. "You didn't want to catch up with Nate, too?" she asked and took a sip of soda.

"Eh, I see Nate all the time," Sully said with a wave of his hand. "I wanted to see how you're doing."

Elena blinked at him as it clicked. "Oh," she said, dragging the word out knowingly. Now it made sense.

"What?"

"You're trying to make sure we're okay," she said. "Me and Nate." Sully had taken a hands-off approach towards their relationship, save for some good-natured teasing from time to time. The one exception was in Yemen, after he and Nate had come back from the desert. Sully had asked her point-blank if she still loved Nate and if she was happier without him. Her answers had been yes and no, respectively. Then he'd invited her on a vacation and told her to meet them at the airport the next day, if she was interested. Elena liked to think that she and Nate could have worked things out on their own, but the push from Sully hadn't hurt. She certainly understood why he'd still be concerned about them now.

"No, that's not it," Sully said. Elena arched an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. "That's not entirely it."

"Uh-huh."

He rubbed his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Elena felt a brief flicker of guilt for putting him on the spot, but she needed to know what was going on. There were few things she hated more than being left out of the loop. "All right, honestly?" Sully said, dropping his hand. "Yeah, I worry about you two. But I see Nate all the time, I pretty much know how he's doing. This last year, you… didn't exactly have an easy time of it." He shrugged. "I wanted to see how you're doing."

Elena looked away, smiling faintly. That was actually rather sweet of him. "I'm good," she said after a second. "Should be leaving for my first assignment next week."

"Yeah? Where you headed?"

"Saudi Arabia," Elena replied dryly.

Sully chuckled. "Weren't you just out there?"

"Yes, I was," she said. "I think they're trying to tell me something about bailing on my contract." It was a good assignment, actually: investigating how the Saudis were responding to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East promised to be interesting. But Elena had a feeling that for the next five months or so, she'd be getting assignments almost exclusively in that region. At least it'd keep her in practice with Arabic.

"You're not in trouble at your job or anything, are you?" Sully asked.

"Nah, it's fine." Elena waved a hand in the air. "If they were really pissed at me, they'd have stuck me on something with much less exposure." Which is what she'd been expecting, honestly. Getting an assignment that was not only high-profile, but that also dovetailed nicely with the work she'd already been doing, had been a huge relief.

"That's good." Sully took a sip of his drink. "Is Nate going with you?"

Elena nodded. "Yeah. He said he hasn't been to Riyadh in a while." And they hadn't been back together quite long enough for either of them to tolerate being apart for that long. Nate had said he'd come with her almost before she'd finished telling him where the assignment was.

"I think last time we had a job there was... '95, maybe?" Sully took a drag on his cigar and frowned thoughtfully. "It didn't end well."

Elena blinked at him. "Didn't end well in a way where I should be researching the statute of limitations?" she asked. Nate's criminal record occasionally made traveling together a bit difficult-- he preferred not to visit Turkey at all if he could help it, for example.

Sully laughed and shook his head. "No, no, nothing like that. No official trouble. Nate and I crossed the wrong people, Nate almost lost an arm, we had to skip town under cover of darkness. That sort of thing."

"He almost--" Elena cut herself off as the waiter swept past to refill their drinks and assure them that their food would be out in just a few minutes. She waited until the waiter was out of earshot before looking back at Sully. "Almost lost an arm?"

"Yeah-- you haven't heard about this?" Sully asked. Elena shook her head, and he grinned. "All right, so, Nate and I are checking out this temple. Mostly intact, lots of statues, the statues are all holding swords and axes and stuff-- that'll be important later..."


	8. Chapter 8

"So, I know the house thing was my idea," Nate said from his end of the couch, "but d'you think we could just sell everything we own and become nomads instead?"

Elena glanced up from her laptop, which was balanced on Nate's shins, as he had his legs across her lap. "It's not that bad."

"We're gonna have to unpack all that stuff, Elena," Nate said. "Do you have any idea how much of a pain that's gonna be?"

She bit her tongue on a comment about how she'd been the one to pack most of it up in the first place. "You really want to sell all your books?" she asked instead.

Nate frowned. "...damn."

"I know your weak spots," Elena replied with a smirk. She went back to scrolling through the for-sale listings; while they'd eventually have to find a real estate agent, right now she just wanted to get a sense of what the market looked like. "How many bedrooms do we want?"

"How many do we need?" he asked. Elena just glanced over at him and raised her eyebrows. Nate blinked at her, then his eyes went wide. "Elena, I swear, if this is you telling me you're pregnant--"

"Oh, no, no no no no," she said, shaking her head for emphasis. "Trust me, I would not be dropping that on you that casually."

"Thank God."

She sighed. "That is sort of the question, though." It was probably well past the time when they should have revisited this, really. Like the house issue, she'd been willing to push it off to the future when they'd first gotten married, and then everything else had gotten in the way. That wasn't to say she hadn't thought about it, though. Elena really liked the idea of a kid with her eyes and Nate's smile and Victor or Victoria for a middle name.

Nate, on the other hand... He grimaced faintly, something akin to fear crossing his face. "Didn't we already have the kids talk?"

"We didn't really decide on much, other than 'maybe eventually.'" Elena shrugged. "I just want to make sure we're on the same page here." She tapped his knee and tried to ignore the way her stomach was twisting into knots. Nate didn't look precisely thrilled about the direction the conversation had gone. He hadn't been against the idea when they'd talked about it the first time, but that had been almost two years ago. "I do want to have at least one kid," she said.

Nate sighed and looked away. "I-- I don't know," he said, and Elena tried not to wince. "I like the idea, having kids, I just... I don't know if I'd be any good at it. Being a father." He glanced back at her, trying for a wry smile and falling short. "It's not like I have a lot to work with."

Oh. Well, that was an entirely different issue. And much more easily dealt with than him just flat-out not wanting children. Elena closed her laptop and leaned over Nate's legs to set it on the coffee table. "You've got Sully," she pointed out.

He shook his head. "That's different."

"Not really," she said. Sully might not be the most conventional father-figure, but she knew him and Nate well enough to be sure that he'd managed the important parts. Love, support, guidance, he'd given that all to Nate. And she was just as sure that Nate would be able to give all of that to their children someday. Elena smiled at him. "I think you'd be a great dad."

The flabbergasted look on Nate's face was almost comical. "Really?"

"Mm-hm," she said. Nate looked down, brow furrowed, his gaze flickering back and forth as he tried to work through this new information. Elena reached up and took his hand; he raised his head to blink at her in mild confusion. "You and I are gonna have an awesome kid someday," she said.

Nate huffed out a laugh, and his smile looked far more genuine this time. "You're, uh, not talking anytime really soon, right?" he asked.

"Nah." Elena shook her head. "Couple years, maybe." Once they had a baby, they'd both need to adjust their jobs so they'd be traveling less. And Elena wasn't quite ready to switch career tracks just yet. Maybe she'd go for domestic reporting, but right now, traveling the world still held too much appeal.

Nate nodded. "Okay," he said, looking a little less worried. "Then, three, I guess." Elena blinked at him, trying to figure out what he was talking about, and he grinned. "Bedrooms," he clarified. "One for us, one for the future Drake-Fisher kid, and one to turn into a library."

She laughed and grabbed her laptop again. "We're gonna have to buy a lot more bookshelves," she said. "I don't want to trip over piles of books constantly."

"Aw, but I like having 'em stacked up everywhere," Nate said, gesturing at the coffee table, which had two small towers of books on it.

"And I like being able to walk across a room without falling on my face," Elena replied. She clicked a couple options on the real estate website, narrowing the field to homes with three or more bedrooms. Maybe they'd get lucky and find a place with a library already built in. Probably not in their price range, but she could dream.


	9. Chapter 9

Nate woke up first that morning and immediately wished he hadn't. He felt like it would've been easier to act normal if Elena had been awake first, if she'd been up and making coffee and reading the news on her tablet. But she was still sound asleep, curled up on her side with her back to him, hugging his arm to her chest. Even if he wanted to get out of bed, he couldn't, not without waking her.

Dammit. If there had been some way to just skip this day, he'd have taken it. Today was a year since-- since he'd walked out. Since he'd snuck out in the middle of the night like a fucking coward, packed up his books and notes and ran. He'd told himself it was what he had to do, that she was wrong, that she was trying to make him into something he wasn't…

He curled closer to her and buried his face in her hair. Things were better, now. They were buying a house together, and Elena didn't hesitate quite so often when she talked about their future. Phrases like 'next year' or 'in a few years' seemed to be coming easier to both of them. But Nate knew she was still working on trusting him. On forgiving him.

Not that he could blame her, since he was still working on forgiving himself.

Elena stirred in his arms, and Nate raised his head to look down at her. She sighed, then opened her eyes, looking a little confused about the fact that she was awake. Nate couldn't help but brush a soft kiss to her cheek. She turned her head to look up at him and smiled. "Morning," she said.

"Morning." He really wanted to kiss her properly, but his mouth still tasted like week-old socks, so he refrained.

"You okay?" Elena asked, rolling over so she could face him, her brow furrowed in concern.

"Uh, yeah," Nate said quickly.

She ran her thumb along the edge of his jaw. "You look like someone just kicked your puppy," she said.

"I don't like dogs."

"You know what I mean." She searched his face, her hand sliding down to his shoulder, and maybe it was the way her fingers pressed into his skin just a little too hard or the way she didn't quite meet his eyes, but Nate was suddenly certain that she knew what day it was.

He pulled her closer so he could press his face against the side of her neck. "I'm fine," he said, and while she could probably hear the lie at least she couldn't see it. Nate heard her sigh, then she wrapped an arm around his back, her fingers tracing idle patterns over his skin.

"Don't we have something to do today?" Elena asked after a few minutes.

Nate nodded. "Closing on the house, remember?"

"Right." There was something a little off about her voice, and she pulled back, her fingers on his chin to tip his face up. "You did that on purpose, didn't you," she said, more a statement than a question.

He huffed out a laugh and shrugged one shoulder, trying to act innocent. "I-I-I don't…" Elena gave him a look, the one that meant she knew he was lying, and Nate trailed off. It hadn't been calculated, not really; the realtor had called him to schedule the meeting to sign all the papers, and when she'd mentioned today's date, he'd agreed almost immediately.

Nate sighed. "I-I'm not, I'm not trying to cover up what…" _what I did_ , "I just… I don't know, I didn't want us to spend the rest of our lives hating this day, so I thought if we had something good too, then it wouldn't be so…" He glanced up at her, but he couldn't make sense of the expression on her face. "Are you mad?"

Elena didn't respond right away, just kept staring at him with that unreadable expression. Then she shook her head and leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Not mad," she murmured, nuzzling at his cheek, and gave him a small, crooked smile when she leaned back.

"Okay. Good." Nate managed a smile in return.

She patted his arm and pulled away. "C'mon, time to get up," she said. "I need coffee and a shower."

"In that order?" Nate asked as she slid out of bed.

Elena stretched her arms over her head, then dropped them before answering. "Nah," she said. "You wanna make coffee while I'm showering?"

"Only if you promise not to use all the hot water," he replied with a smirk.

She chuckled and headed for the bathroom. "I promise nothing," she said with a grin and closed the door behind her.

Nate huffed out a laugh. "Okay," he breathed. Get up, make coffee, buy a house with his wife. Much better plans for the day than last year.


	10. Chapter 10

If the boxes were multiplying-- and at this point, Nate was pretty sure that they were-- at least they were the boxes with books in them. More books were never a bad thing. He pushed the last box into place and surveyed his handiwork, nodding in satisfaction.

Elena walked by the door of the second-bedroom-slash-library, then a second later, walked backwards to stare through the door frame. "Did you really build a box fort in there?"

Nate looked at the boxes arranged around himself and nodded. Elena laughed, then started to walk over. "Ack, invader!" Nate said, casting about for something to use as a ranged weapon. A pillow would have been perfect, but the only things close at hand were cardboard boxes and books, neither of which were acceptable projectiles.

With nothing to stop her, Elena climbed over the boxes and sat down on the floor next to him. "It's not nearly tall enough."

"I know. I ran out of boxes."

"You should've used the books," she said. "Put them down as a foundation and then put the boxes on top."

"But the whole point of this was to avoid taking things out of boxes," Nate said. He'd filled one and a half bookshelves before giving into the urge to build a fort. He really hated unpacking.

Elena laughed. "Good point." She tugged the tie out of her hair and shook her head, her hair falling down around her shoulders. With a sigh, she started finger-combing it, tugging out the knots. Nate reached over and plucked the tie from her fingers. He liked it when she had her hair down. Easier to play with, or run his fingers through...

"I'm gonna want that back eventually," Elena said, smirking.

Nate grinned. He knew that look. He _liked_ that look. "Eventually," he agreed even as Elena moved over to straddle his legs. It was their first house, after all. They'd need to break in all the rooms.

 

*

 

"Hey, Nate?" Elena called from the bedroom.

"Unless you're about to tell me that you've reconsidered the idea of becoming nomads, I'm not interested," Nate called back. It was getting late, he was tired and cranky, and he really, really hated unpacking. How the hell did they both have so much _stuff_?

Elena didn't respond, and with a sigh, Nate set down the stack of DVDs and headed back to the bedroom. "Yes?"

Elena was sitting on the bed, surrounded by piles of clothes and shoes. "One, after all the time we've put in to unpacking, we are not becoming nomads," Elena said. "And two, what's this?" She reached over and picked up a plain wooden box from behind a stack of boots. Nate felt his heart drop. Elena shook the box gently. "Couldn't figure out how to get it open... what's wrong?"

Nate heaved a sigh and walked over, then sat down next to her and took the box from her hands. It was funny, really. He'd assumed he'd never be able to give her this, and then once he was able to, he forgot that it existed. He slid his hands down the sides of the box, pressing in on the hidden latches, then hooked a finger under the lid to pull it up an inch. "It's... it's for you," he said. Elena frowned at him, confused, and he held it out to her.

Elena took the box back and set it on her lap before opening the lid. "Oh," she said after a moment, staring down at the small collection of trinkets: a couple carved statuettes, a few rings, a handful of coins from half a dozen places and times, and a delicate silver bracelet. He always seemed to stumble across these sorts of things, treasures hidden in the dark, forgotten corners of the world. After they'd moved in together, he'd gotten in the habit of bringing some of them back, saving the ones that reminded him of her. The habit hadn't gone away just because he'd walked out.

"I found them," Nate said. "While I was..." Away from her, chasing an obsession and a family that was never his in the first place. "I-I thought you'd like them."

Elena smiled faintly, tracing her fingers over one of the small statues. Then, so fast that Nate almost jumped, she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him in for a kiss. "Thanks," she said when they parted and lightly bumped her forehead against his. Nate smiled back in relief. "You'll have to show me how to get that open later," Elena said as she flicked the lid shut, then slid off the bed to go set the box on her dresser. "Wanna help me clear the bed so we'll actually have a place to sleep?" she asked, turning back to him.

Nate glanced at the piles on the bed. "By 'clear the bed' do you mean just shove everything on the floor and then pass out?"

"Don't tempt me, Drake."

 

*

 

Nate flopped down on the couch next to Elena. He glanced around the living room, then sighed and let his head fall against the back of the couch. He must be getting old, if moving into a new house left him this tired. Then again, they had been unpacking for three days straight.

"I think we're done," Elena said.

He glanced at her sideways. "Aren't there still some boxes in the hall closet--?"

Elena reached over and pressed her fingers to his lips to silence him. "Shh," she said. "I don't see any more boxes, therefore, we're done."

Nate laughed. "Out of sight, out of mind?" he asked once she dropped her hand.

"Pretty much." Elena leaned to the side until her head was resting on his shoulder. "I don't want to see another cardboard box. Ever."

"Seriously." They sat in comfortable, tired silence for a few minutes. "So," Nate said eventually, "now what?"

Elena shrugged. "We could paint," she said.

Nate made a non-committal sound. The previous owners had left the walls a nice, off-white color, and he didn't really see any pressing need to change it. Most of the walls were gonna be covered by bookshelves or artwork, anyway. He still had a couple maps that he'd swiped from Marlowe's library that he wanted to get framed. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he brightened. "Oh, hey, I could build some secret compartments," he said.

Elena tilted her head back to look up at him. "Secret compartments."

"Yeah." He'd made do with hiding things under the mattress or under the couch for years, but now that he actually owned a place, he could cut holes in the walls or floor without getting evicted. "Y'know, for guns or treasure or birthday presents."

She laughed. "And where are you planning on putting these?"

"Not sure yet," Nate replied thoughtfully. "Probably one in the garage and then one somewhere in the house. Maybe the kitchen. Or in here." He gestured at the living room.

"Just don't cut any holes in the outside walls," Elena said. "If a raccoon wanders in because of your construction projects, you're dealing with it."

"Fair enough." Nate paused for a second. "Actually, around here, it'd probably be an armadillo." Elena shot him a look, and he shrugged. "You're the one who voted for staying in Florida."

She chuckled and shook her head. "Good point." Elena sighed, shifting closer to him so she could cuddle up against his side. "Gonna take a nap."

"Okay." Nate draped an arm around her. It wasn't like he had anywhere else he wanted to be.


	11. Chapter 11

While Nate and Sully were getting better about it, they still had a habit of failing to share what Elena considered to be important information with her. She knew that most of the time, it wasn't deliberate or malicious-- they just got distracted or excited and forgot. Not that it made the habit any more acceptable or easier to deal with. But at least she'd stopped being surprised by it. Mostly.

"Wait, wait, Sully has a goddaughter?" Elena asked, her hand frozen in the air halfway to the car keys.

Nate blinked. "Uh. Yeah," he said, like this was common knowledge.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Well, at least I found out _before_ we got to Sully's house," she said and tossed the keys to Nate.

He caught them one-handed. "Wait, I thought you knew!" he said, trailing after her to the door.

"Nope."

"Oh." Nate was quiet for a few moments. "I could've _sworn_ I told you."

"I think I'd remember being told about other members of Sully's family," Elena said.

"Sorry," Nate said. "Uh, okay. Her name's Jada Hzujak, she's--"

"Hzujak?" Elena repeated. The name sounded familiar. "Wait, was she involved with that murder in New York a few years ago?" It had been grisly enough to linger in the news cycle for a couple weeks. She recalled something about a fire in connection with the murder, too.

"Yeah," Nate said, and Elena looked back at him, a little surprised by the sudden tension in his voice. "That was Jada's father and one of Sully's closest friends. Sully and I got mixed up in the whole thing, trying to figure out who killed him and why." He shook his head, as if to clear it, then jangled the keys at Elena. "I'll give you the quick version if you drive."

In the short time it took to reach Sully's house, Nate gave her an abbreviated explanation of what had happened with Jada and her father's murder. "I've only seen her a couple times since then," Nate said as they got out of the car. "We haven't really stayed in touch."

"Ah." At least that explained why Nate had never mentioned her. The front door of Sully's house was already unlocked, which allowed Nate to walk straight in while shouting his birthday greetings to Sully. Elena shut the door behind them and followed him to the living room.

Nate and Sully were in mid-hug when Elena walked in, Sully already holding Nate's traditional gift of smuggled Cuban cigars in one hand. A young woman with blue streaks in her dark hair stood near one of the chairs. Jada, presumably. Nate stepped back from the hug and turned to Jada with a grin. "Hey, Jada, how've you--" Jada cut him off by slugging him in the arm. "Ow!" Nate yelped. "The hell was that for?"

"You didn't invite me to your wedding!" Jada snapped.

Sully visibly choked back laughter, then slid around behind Nate to greet Elena. "Hey, sweetheart," he said, giving her a quick hug.

"Happy birthday, Sully."

Behind them, the argument continued. "I didn't think you'd want to-- ow! Stop hitting me!"

"Of course I'd want to come to your wedding!"

"Sully said you were in Greece!"

Sully moved back from the hug and held his hands up. "Don't blame me for this one, kid," he said.

Nate had retreated a few steps from Jada, who was staring at him with her hands on her hips. "I didn't think you'd want to fly halfway around the world for a fifteen-minute ceremony," he said.

Jada huffed out an annoyed breath and shook her head. "Well, I would've. Now you don't get a wedding present."

"Aw." Nate looked wounded and rubbed his arm.

Elena patted him on the shoulder as she stepped around him to introduce herself. "I'm Elena," she said. "Nice to meet you."

"Jada." They shook hands, and Jada narrowed her eyes slightly. "Wait, are you sure we haven't met? You look really familiar."

"Yeah, I got that a lot," Elena said. The perils of being on television. She straightened up and dropped into her Serious Reporter face. "This is Elena Fisher, reporting for--"

"Oh, yeah, that's it!" Jada cut in, nodding. "You were in the Middle East recently, right?"

Elena glanced sideways at Nate, who'd suddenly gone still beside her. "Yeah," Elena said, looking back at Jada, who either hadn't noticed the momentary tension or had a wicked poker face. "I was over there for a while."

Sully cleared his throat. "All right, c'mon, sit down," he said, herding them towards the couch and chairs. "You two want drinks?"

"Sure," Nate said. Elena brushed her knuckles against the back of his hand as they sat down. He glanced at her and gave her a quick smile. The reminders of their separation were less frequent, these days, but it still tended to throw both of them off.

Sully came back with a pair of beers and handed them over before settling into his chair with one of his new Cubans. "So, as I was about to ask before you started assaulting me," Nate said, shooting a pointed look at Jada. She just grinned unrepentantly. "What've you been up to?"

"Teaching," Jada said. "I'm a professor of history up in New York."

Nate looked genuinely impressed and toasted her with his beer. "What school?" Elena asked.

"City College," Jada said. "I'm full-time, but I'm still the most junior faculty, so I'm stuck teaching the really _fun_ things like Research Methods."

Elena winced in sympathy. "I had to take one of those," she said. "Pretty sure the professor hated it as much as we did."

"At least my other class is cool," Jada said. "Ancient Greek History. That's my research focus. Picked up where Dad left off." Her smile turned a bit sad, and Sully leaned over to squeeze her shoulder. Jada shook her head, as if clearing it, then shrugged. "We're on spring break right now. I'm technically supposed to be grading mid-terms, but..." She smirked and took a drink.

"Just pass 'em all," Nate suggested.

"Don't tempt me," Jada said. She glanced over at Elena, then pointed at her with her bottle. "Okay, I have to ask," she started. "How does a respectable journalist end up with... Nate?"

Nate put a hand to his heart and acted wounded. "I'm respectable!" he protested. Both Elena and Jada shot him incredulous looks, and he slumped in his chair a bit. "I can be. Sometimes."

"Sometimes," Elena agreed with a laugh. "Don't worry, I like you all disreputable." Nate wrinkled his nose at her and took a sip of beer. Elena looked back at Jada. "But--wait, you haven't heard how Nate and I met?"

"Nope," Jada said, shaking her head.

Elena grinned. Nearly five years later, and she still wasn't tired of giving Nate and Sully crap about how their first meeting went down. Sully chuckled, clearly recognizing where this was going, while Nate grabbed Elena's arm. "Oh, no, Elena, please don't," he begged. "She's already got a low enough opinion of me, don't make it any worse--"

"He and Sully conned my producers into financing a deep sea dive to recover Francis Drake's coffin," Elena said, ignoring Nate's pleas, "and after we found the coffin, we got attacked by pirates, the boat blew up..." Jada looked stunned, while Nate just took a drink of beer and rolled his eyes. "And then, once Sully gets us back to dry land, these two ditched me at the dock."

"Okay, no," Nate said, setting down his beer on the coffee table with a decisive thunk. "That was all Sully's idea. I made a very strong argument for letting you come with us."

Sully snorted. "If by 'strong argument' you mean staring longingly out the window at her, then sure."

Jada laughed, and Nate made a face at Sully. "You were the one piloting the boat," Nate said. "That was totally your fault." Sully just grinned.

"It's not exactly like you tried to stop him," Elena pointed out. Nate made some incoherent, offended sounds at her, then slouched against the couch and pretended to sulk-- Elena had long since figured out the difference between Nate actually being upset and Nate acting like he was upset to get attention. "Anyway," she continued. "I was able to track them down to the jungle and caught up with Nate there."

"And then she punched me in the face," Nate said.

"You deserved it."

Jada shook her head, looking back and forth between the two of them. "And... you ended up married."

Nate grinned. "I'm just that charming." Sully snorted in laughter; Nate pointed at him. "Shut up."

"There were a few other things that happened between me punching him and him proposing," Elena said.

"I'd think so," Jada replied, smirking. "If Nate proposed to every woman who hit him in the face--"

"Ha ha," Nate cut in.

"Okay, but I wanna hear more about finding Drake's coffin," Jada said. "Did you lose it when the boat sank, or...?"

Elena glanced at Nate and grinned; he smirked back. It wasn't often they got to talk about how they met, much less give the uncensored version of events. And, hell, it was a fun story. "Well, yeah," Elena said. "Not that it mattered much, since the coffin was empty."

"Wait, it was what!?"


	12. Chapter 12

"So, where's this job of yours?" Elena asked, watching from the bedroom doorway as Nate stuffed a handful of shirts into his duffel bag. This was the first time since she'd gotten back that he was going off on a job like this-- between the new house and selling off the relics from Marlowe's library, Nate had been able to keep himself busy. Not to say he hadn't gone off hunting treasure, but he’d taken to arranging his adventures around wherever Elena had to go for her work. He'd be gone for a few days, maybe even a week, but at least he was close by.

And he'd told her where he was going, all those other times. Nate was being fairly evasive about this job, just saying that he and Sully were heading out early tomorrow morning. It was familiar in some horribly unpleasant ways.

"Middle East," Nate said, his back towards her, as if somehow not being able to see his face would keep her from knowing that he was lying.

Elena snorted and crossed her arms. "That's vague," she said. And worrying. The Middle East wasn't exactly a bastion of stability and safety at the moment-- there was a reason she'd been steering clear of the area. They'd talked about this, they were both trying to be more careful about their work... "C'mon, where are you going?"

"You really gonna start nagging me about this now?" Nate retorted, still not turning to look at her.

"Nagging you?" Elena snapped. She huffed out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. "Nate, I'm your _wife_. I have a right to know where you're going, especially if it's going to be something dangerous!" Nate didn't say anything, but the way he shifted his weight and tensed his shoulders told her everything she needed to know. "It is dangerous, isn't it."

Nate heaved a sigh and finally turned around. "Look, I've got good reasons for it, Sully and I are trying to help somebody out, and I just--"

"Where are you going?" Elena cut in. She didn't want his damn excuses, she just wanted a straight answer.

Nate shot her a dirty look at the interruption. "Syria," he said, hands planted on his hips, eyebrows going up in a silent challenge.

Elena stared at him. "Syria," she repeated. "As in being torn apart by a vicious civil war, Syria."

"There's a curator who asked us to try and recover some of the artifacts from his museum's collection," Nate said. "He and his family had to take off when the fighting started, he hid a bunch of stuff and figured he'd be able to get back to it relatively soon. Didn't work out that way." He shrugged. "It's just past the Lebanese border. Me and Sully will go in, grab the stuff, get back out. Shouldn't be in the country more than a day."

Right. Assuming everything went according to plan, which it rarely did under the best of circumstances. They were talking about sneaking across borders into a civil war zone and hoping they wouldn't get stopped by the Syrian army, the Syrian rebels, or the Lebanese army at any point. "I can't believe you're doing this," Elena said. So much for being careful. "I can't believe you're dragging Sully into this."

Nate scoffed and rolled his eyes. "It's actually Sully's job," he retorted. "The curator's a friend of his. _I'm_ not dragging him into anything." Elena just shook her head. That didn't make things any better. It just meant that she'd have to yell at Sully about doing idiotic things for his friends. "This is why I didn't want to say anything," Nate continued. "I knew you'd be pissed."

"Because I don't want you to die, Nate!" Elena snapped. She'd come close to losing him for good far too many times, and she didn't want to go through that again if it wasn't for a good reason. "Is there anything there that's worth risking your life over?"

"It's not gonna be that dangerous," Nate said. "We--"

"No, empty ruins in South America are 'not that dangerous.'" Elena swallowed hard, her fingers digging into her arms hard enough to ache. "You're talking about going into a damn civil war zone. I know _exactly_ how dangerous that can be!"

Nate blanched, and Elena just barely managed to repress a guilty wince. Over two years since Nepal, and it still haunted them both, how close they'd both come to death and losing each other. But that was the whole damn point-- they'd risked their lives and barely made it out before. That, at least, had been for a good reason. She understood the concern, even sympathized with the curator, but dammit, some relics weren't worth Nate and Sully's lives. 

"So do I," Nate finally ground out. "Like I was saying, we've got contacts in both countries, and there's not much fighting in the area. That's why Sully's friend asked him for help now. This might be the only chance he has to get these things out." He shook his head. "This is his life, Elena, I can't just--"

"No, it's not," Elena said. "It's his work, and--"

"Can I finish a goddamn sentence!?" Nate snapped. Elena pressed her lips together in a thin line and glared at him. "This is important," Nate continued after a few moments of glaring back. "I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't Sully's friend asking."

"Oh, so it's important to help Sully's friend, but it's not important to tell me where you're going?" Elena asked. "You take off and, and if something happened I'd probably never find out. You just--" She swallowed hard to keep her voice from cracking. "You just wouldn't come home."

Nate sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "We'll be fine," he said. "We're gonna be careful, and if it seems too risky, we'll bail. Okay?"

"No, Nate, it's not okay," Elena replied. Being careful wasn't good enough, this was… he should have thought this through, he should have talked to her, he should have just been up front with her about this whole damn thing.

He droppedhis hand and shot her an exasperated look. "What do you want from me, Elena?"

She wanted him to cancel the job, to find something safer, but the words caught in her throat. The last time she'd told him to give up something like this--the last time he'd asked her that question--he'd walked out. She'd thought she was doing better, thought she more or less trusted him to stay, but the way her chest suddenly went tight with fear cast doubt on that. What did it say about her if the idea of telling him to back down on a job made her think he'd leave? What did it say about _them_?

Elena shook her head slightly. If this made Nate walk out again, then they were never gonna work in the first place. "I want you to tell me when you're doing shit like this," she said, looking up at him. "I want you to talk to me before you take these kind of jobs. And-- and honestly, Nate, I don't want you to do this. It's too dangerous." She let out a sharp breath. "You're gonna get yourself killed."

Nate opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and looked away. Elena could practically see him arguing with himself, his jaw clenched and his eyes flicking back and forth. After a few seconds, he sighed and glanced over at her. "I-I'll talk to Sully and see what some other options might be," he said. "I'm not letting Sully go over there by himself, and I don't wanna just leave his friend hanging, but... I'll see if we can work out something else."

It wasn't quite what she wanted, but truth be told, it was better than she'd been expecting. Elena nodded, the tension slowly ebbing out of her. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

"I'm sorry," Nate said. His hands dropped to his sides, and Elena could see the fight go out of him, too. "I just-- shit. I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Elena sighed, shook her head again. "I'm sorry, too." 

Nate took a couple steps towards her and hesitated for a second before putting his arms around her. Elena unfolded her arms and hugged him back. "You have to tell me this stuff, Nate," Elena said quietly, tucking her head under his chin. “You can't just cut me out.”

He sighed. "I know. I'm sorry."

Well. It was a start, if nothing else. Elena held onto him for a few moments more, then moved back, raising one hand to pat his arm. "You should call Sully," she said.

"Yeah." Nate searched her face for a second, his features still tense, then moved away to get his phone from the nightstand.

Elena took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She watched as Nate put the phone to his ear, then she headed back down the hall to the living room. She'd let him have his privacy while he talked to Sully. She could trust him with that.


	13. Chapter 13

It was funny how quickly something could become routine, Sully mused as he knocked on the front door of Nate and Elena's house. In the handful of months since Elena had come back from Yemen, the three of them had gotten into the habit of having dinner together once a week, so long as they were all in town. It was nice, really, knowing that he was more or less certain to see them at least a couple times a month. He'd missed that when they'd lived on the other side of the country.

The door swung open, and Sully shook off his musing to smile at Elena. “Hey, sweetheart!” he said.

“Hi, Sully!” She stepped forward to give him a hug, then stood aside so he could come in. “Nate's out,” she said as she led him back to the kitchen. “He suddenly realized he needed a book for his research and took off for the library.”

Sully chuckled. “Think he’ll be back for dinner?” he asked.

“Well, if he’s not, I plan to hide the leftovers,” Elena replied, grinning over her shoulder at him. “And then you can help me string him along and tell him we ate it all ourselves.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Not sure he’ll buy it,” Sully said, nodding at the food spread across the counter. Of the three of them, Elena was the only one who was any good at cooking, but she didn’t like to do it all that often. Usually these dinners involved going out somewhere or ordering takeout. Apparently, though, this would be one of those rare evenings where she actually wanted to make dinner.

Elena shrugged and started chopping celery again. “Well, when Nate’s involved, I usually have to double the recipe,” she said. “And with all this,” she waved the knife at the various ingredients, “we’ll have leftovers and won’t have to order dinner for a day or two.”

“Good idea,” Sully said as he headed to the fridge. He pulled out a beer for himself, then, when Elena made grabbing motions at him, got one for her, too. “So,” he began, leaning back against the counter, “you two figured out where you’re going for your anniversary?” Nate and Elena’s second wedding anniversary was next month, and while he hadn’t said it directly, Sully wanted it to go well for them. Especially since Nate had spent the last one messily drunk at a bar in Caracas, a bar that Sully had to drag him out of when he’d tried to pick a fight with the bouncer and the bouncer’s three friends. He didn’t know how Elena had spent the day, but he couldn’t imagine that it had been much better.

Elena sighed, and Sully tried not to wince. That didn't sound good. “We did,” she said, “but you have to promise not to gloat.”

“Why would I—oh.” Sully grinned. Never mind, then. Definitely good.

Elena glanced at him. “Shut up.”

Sully just laughed. “So, where in Hawaii are you going?” He’d been stationed there when he was in the Navy, and while he hadn’t been back in years, he still thought it was one of the most beautiful places he’d visited. When he found out that neither Nate nor Elena had ever been, he’d encouraged them to consider it as an option for their anniversary trip. Strongly encouraged.

“We got a beach house on… one of the smaller islands,” Elena said. She frowned, thinking, then shook her head. “I don’t remember which one. Nate probably knows.”

“Or you'll just be surprised when you get there.”

“As far as surprises go, that's not a bad one.”

He grinned and took another drink of beer. Elena finished with the celery and dumped it into a pot on the stove. “So what's for dinner?” Sully asked.

“Spaghetti,” Elena replied, peering into the pot. The back door swung open abruptly, and Nate came in, cradling a stack of books. “Hey, you,” Elena said with a grin.

“Hey,” Nate said. “Told you I'd be back in time.”

“Uh-huh.” Elena nodded at the books. “You also said you needed _a_ book,” she teased.

Nate looked down and shrugged. “Well, it was either bring them all home, or stay there and read them to figure out which ones I wanted,” he said. “This way, I get dinner.”

“Good thinking,” Sully said dryly.

Nate glanced at him, then grinned. “Hi, Sully,” he said and tried to wave, nearly dropping his books in the process. “Uh. I'm gonna... go put these down.”

Sully caught Elena's eye as Nate disappeared into the living room; she smirked and rolled her eyes. “You mind cutting up the bread for me?” she asked, gesturing at the loaf on the counter. 

“Sure thing.” Even though it was routine by now, these almost-weekly dinners, it still felt a little weird, Sully thought as he collected the bread and a knife. Still, weird didn't mean bad. Sully smiled to himself when Nate came back into the kitchen and gave Elena a sideways hug before grabbing a beer for himself. And it looked like he was gonna have plenty of time to get used to this.


	14. Chapter 14

Nate found Elena sitting on the front steps of their rented beach house, her legs stretched out in front of her and her back to him as she stared out at the ocean. Nate paused in the doorway to stare at her. She looked about as good as he felt, the faint, relaxed smile on her face a mirror of his own. This anniversary trip had been good for them, he thought. While they traveled a lot for their jobs, those trips didn't often involve a lot of time together. This was the first vacation they'd taken... well, since their honeymoon, really.

The floorboards creaked as he shifted his weight, and Elena turned to look at him. “Hey,” she said, her smile brightening, and she held out a hand to him in invitation.

Nate smiled back and sat down on the steps beside her, catching her hand in his and lacing their fingers together. He dipped his head to brush a kiss to the back of her hand, and she laughed. “You're such a romantic.”

“You know you love it.”

“I do,” she said, leaning in to kiss him. Nate met her halfway, curling his free hand against the side of her face. He didn't move back much when they eventually parted, brushing his thumb over her skin while he searched her face. Elena tilted her head to the side, her smile turning a bit curious. “What?”

He gave her a sideways smile and shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “Just... sometimes I remember how lucky I am.”

Elena laughed again. “Only sometimes?” she teased. Nate made a face at her, and she grinned, turned her head to press a kiss to his palm. “I know the feeling,” she said, eyes sparkling.

Nate chuckled and kissed her again. She made a contented, humming sound, and he could feel her smiling against his lips. He slid his hand to the back of her neck and tilted his head to the side just a bit to deepen the kiss. They were both a little breathless when they parted, and Elena looked a bit dazed as she blinked at him. He loved that look, loved knowing that he could make her forget about everything else for a few moments. God knew she did it to him often enough.

He squeezed her hand, and Elena glanced down, then took his left hand in both of hers. Nate just watched her as she ran her thumb over his wedding ring. Two years since she'd slid it onto his finger for the first time. It was still a little hard to believe, sometimes. For most of his life, marriage and-- and a family hadn't even been on his radar. And then once he'd had it, he almost threw it all away. But for all that, she'd taken him back, and he was doing his best to get it right this time.

Today, he was pretty damn sure that they'd be fine. That they'd have dozens of anniversaries to spend together like this. And the days that he believed that, without any prickling of doubt or guilt, had long since outnumbered the ones where he didn't.

“What time are we supposed to be at dinner?” Elena asked, looking up at him again.

Nate blinked, bringing his mind back to the present. “Uh... seven, I think,” he said.

“Mm.” Elena turned his hand a bit so she could read his watch. “It's only three-thirty,” she said, smirking. “Any ideas on what to do with all that time?”

Well, he certainly knew what ideas _she_ had. “We could go swimming,” he suggested dryly. Elena laughed and scooted closer to him, leaning in to press kisses to his throat. Nate sighed quietly and arched his neck so she could keep going. “Or take a walk,” he continued, unable to ignore how rough his voice had gotten. “Maybe do some reading.”

Elena chuckled and drew back. “Right,” she said, dragging the word out sarcastically. She disentangled their hands and stood up, then sauntered back towards the door. She disappeared into the house, and a few seconds later, her shirt landed just inside the doorway. Nate grinned. He couldn’t really ask for a clearer invitation.


	15. Chapter 15

Nate frowned at the map in front of him, then looked up at the river cutting through the jungle. He hadn’t been expecting to hit a river quite so soon. There were two rivers on the map, and this didn’t seem to match up with either of them. At least, he didn’t think it did. So either they’d covered more ground that he’d thought, the map was wrong, or they were lost.

“Everything okay, kid?” Sully asked from behind him.

“Uh.” Nate looked at the river again, then at the sky. So if that way was east, then… Oh, crap. “We, uh. We might be lost.”

Sully groaned. “Let me see that.” Nate obediently handed over the map and ignored Sully’s grumbling about knowing better than to let him navigate. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips and looked around, trying to find something to orient himself off of. The problem with jungles, though, was that if you didn’t live there, it just looked like an unending mass of trees.

“Yeah,” Sully said after a minute or so. “We're lost.” He sighed and refolded the map; Nate held his hand out for it, and Sully shook his head. “Oh, no. You've lost your navigation rights.”

Nate snorted and fell in behind Sully as they started to pick their way back through the dense undergrowth. He'd led them off the path about a quarter of a mile back-- not too far off course, relatively speaking. “Honestly, I'm not sure why I had them to begin with,” Nate commented. “How many times have I gotten us lost?”

“I've long since stopped counting,” Sully replied.

“My point exactly.”

Sully chuckled. “Didn't everyone you know give you a compass for Christmas last year?”

“Not _everyone_ ,” Nate said. “Just you and Elena and Chloe.” Charlie had e-mailed him a coupon for a handheld GPS device.

“And you didn't bring a single one.”

“Well, I'm not gonna bring the one you gave me,” Nate said, pushing an enormous leaf aside. “That's an antique.”

Sully glanced back over his shoulder at him. “And the other two?”

Nate grinned. “I forgot,” he said without remorse.

Sully heaved a sigh and climbed over a log. “At this rate, we'll be lucky if these ruins of yours are even out here.”

“Hey,” Nate said as he clambered after him. “I might get us lost, but I've never been wrong about the location we're trying to get to.” Sully shot him an incredulous look and started to speak, but Nate cut him off. “No, no, I know what you're gonna say. I might be wrong about whether or not there's actually treasure, but not about where it is.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nate could hear Sully smirking, even if he couldn't see it, and he scowled at the other man's back. “Shut up.”

Sully laughed. “Ah, you're gonna miss this when I retire, just you wait.”

Nate almost tripped over a giant tree root as he looked up at Sully in a near-panic. “You're, uh, you're not talking any time soon, though, right?” he asked.

Sully didn't reply right away, and Nate swallowed hard, fighting to keep from asking again. It was stupid and childish, he knew that. Retiring from adventuring didn't mean Sully was gonna... Sully would be around for a long time. But knowing that didn't stop his stomach from twisting into knots. A long time wasn't forever. Nate knew what it felt like, to think he'd lost his best friend. He dreaded the day when it would be real. Permanent.

“Nah,” Sully said. “I'm not ready to quit just yet.” He glanced over his shoulder at Nate and grinned. “Not letting you wander around by yourself until you've learned to read a goddamn map.”

Nate let out a relieved laugh. They emerged from the trees and back onto the path, and he fell in step beside Sully. “You gonna let me practice, then?” he asked, grabbing at the map.

Sully held it out of his reach and shook his head, grinning. “Not today.”


	16. Chapter 16

Elena hadn’t been awake nearly long enough to be this sore already. And it wasn’t like she’d been doing anything strenuous, either, just sitting on the bed in their hotel room and doing research. She finished scribbling down a few notes, then stretched her arms over her head and looked around. In the hour since she’d started reading, she’d somehow managed to spread her notes and books and computer across majority of the bed.

Also, Nate was gone. Elena blinked, looking around the room. Maybe he’d gone out to wander around the city again, that was usually how he kept himself entertained while she was working, but he always told her when he was leaving…

Just as she started to look around for her phone to text him, the door swung open and Nate stepped into the room, balancing two cups of coffee and a brown paper bag in his hands. “Oh, there you are,” Elena said.

Nate gave her an odd look. “I told you I was going to get breakfast,” he said.

“Did I say anything when you told me that?” she asked.

“You said ‘okay, sounds good,’” Nate told her as he set everything down on the table. Elena frowned at the bed, trying to remember that exchange ever occurring, and Nate laughed. “Probably should’ve made sure you _actually_ heard me,” he said.

“Eh, neither of us has had coffee yet,” Elena said, moving papers aside so she could escape from the bed. “We can’t be held responsible for our actions.”

“True.” Nate pushed her cup of coffee across the table to her as she sat down, then fished a huge cinnamon roll out of the bag for himself. He didn’t move to eat it, though, just sipped his coffee and stared at her.

Elena put up with the staring for about thirty seconds. “What?” she finally asked, when it didn’t seem like Nate was going to say anything.

He smiled crookedly and glanced away, looking almost sheepish. “Today’s a year since-- since we left Aden,” he said.

“Oh.” Elena shook her head slightly, then smiled. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it.” The date hadn’t really stuck in her mind, truth be told—it hadn’t really felt like she was home until she’d left her post in Yemen for good last December. But a year ago was when Nate had come back, when they’d decided to give this whole ‘til-death-do-us-part thing another try. It was when she’d taken the first steps towards forgiving him for what he’d done.

Elena had forgiven him, somewhere in the last year, and she was pretty sure he’d started to forgive himself. She trusted him, too, more often than not. She trusted him today, hadn’t looked around to see if his things were still here or assumed he’d run off when she’d looked up and realized he was gone. And she knew that it wasn’t perfect, that there would still be days when she was afraid that he’d leave her again. But maybe not very many.

“Been a pretty good year,” Nate said, only a little uncertain, and Elena smiled.

“Yeah,” she said, reaching across the table to take his hand. “It really has.”


End file.
